Valgerður Ýr Walderhaug
“Discovery Channel”
21. nov - 22. des

Valgerður Ýr Walderhaug confronts her viewer with a world of abundant material. Her vigorous explorations of colour, surface and gesture joyfully travel beyond the traditional canvas and onto found objects. She integrates many types of material into her practice. For her solo exhibition "Discovery Channel," colourful, abstract paintings on canvas are installed among painted textiles dipped in plaster, eroded objects and crumbling plaster casts of product packaging. By merging evidence of consumer goods into her painting practice, which veers on the sculptural at times, Walderhaug conveys her interest in material hierarchies and meditates on how the objects of our lives are both assigned –and voided of– value.

Before coming to Norway, Walderhaug worked at a recycling facility in Iceland. There, she observed consumer culture through the objects people no longer valued and threw away. She also noticed that the trash in a booming economy differed from the trash of Iceland in an economic crisis. The threshold from valuable to worthless became higher as the public became more reluctant to discard an object they could find use for after all. Walderhaug takes this reevaluation of material into her practice, looking for aesthetic value in everything she comes across. What are the possibilities of a picture plane as defined by the torn edge of cardboard? How does the rust of a piece of scrap metal vibrate beside the colour painted next to it? What new value is created in painting on found plastic?

Her works are driven by their processes. Her choice to transform objects with acrylic paint and plaster lends itself to the way Walderhaug likes to work: with tempo, energy and intuitive hands. Her works grab your attention with their investigations of bold colour and have you linger on the decay of its crumbling edges and patinated surfaces. The work is an exercise in taking definisjonsmakt, the power of definition, over the value of the material. Installed almost as a collage of elements throughout LNM, Walderhaug's colourful and playful works celebrate a new destiny for material.

Valgerður Ýr Walderhaug (b. 1991, Iceland) has an MFA from Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, a BFA from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, and has also studied at the Glasgow School of Art. Her solo exhibitions include Galleri Ask, Fogdegaarden Kunstforening, Gerðuberg and Gallerí Grótta in Iceland, and group shows at Ullensaker Kunstforening, SÍM Gallerí in Reykjavík and The Glue Factory in Glasgow. Walderhaug lives and works in both Oslo and Reykjavik.

This exhibition was produced thanks to support from Kulturdirektoratet og Norske Billedkunstnere Vederlagsfond.